


Just Connected

by Emmybazy



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: (But what Luke isn't pining really), Alternate Universe, Future Fic, M/M, Pining Luke, They're still in a band, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmybazy/pseuds/Emmybazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calum is shocked- well, mildly bemused- when Luke Hemmings is one of the sound guys on their first headlining arena tour. Michael hated Luke in school and Ashton is constantly bouncing about. Maybe Luke's secret will affect the band, maybe Calum will have writer's block, and maybe they will get through the tour in one piece.</p><p>Or, what might've been if Michael and Luke had never become friends in school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Connected

**Author's Note:**

> This came about after I freaked out over the fact that Calum and Luke had written Disconnected with Alex Gaskarth. It is already my summer song and it's barely summer. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who liked Heartache in the Director's chair, I was really glad (and shocked) that people actually liked it. 
> 
> Also, thanks to my lovely sister who betaed this as well as my other cake fics. She's working on some stuff now that I'm sure will be far better than mine so look out for stuff written by keithrichards. 
> 
> Standard Disclaimer, I don't own anything in this writing and none of it's true. I heavily quote and name a lot of 5sos songs that are all amazing but I had no hand in the making off, obviously.

“Calum! Come on! Get excited mate!” Ashton jumps on Calum’s back as they head towards their tour bus. The sun is shining far too brightly and Calum’s internal clock is screwed up because it definitely feels like it should be dark out. He’s reminded why he is out of his bed at this strange hour when he sees the giant bus that Ashton is pointing at over his shoulder.

They had just landed in LA and are about to start their first ever arena tour. And it’s in North America. Calum can’t believe they’re here. How did they go from teenagers with a dream to headlining a sold out tour on a completely different continent?

He knows how it started but that’s about it. Michael and Calum have been best friends for over a decade. In school, they had met Ashton, all three of them with a passion for music, and started making youtube videos covering their favorite songs. In all of their wildest dreams they never believed that they would get attention. They started writing their own songs, performing small gigs in bars on the weekends and people always packed in. It was a slow journey, they all worked minimum wage jobs during the week after they graduated until they had enough of a following to do music full time.

Four years later, they’ve opened for All Time Low and A Day to Remember, plus have toured most of the world playing in smaller venues. And now, at the age of 22, Calum is headlining an arena tour in the US with his two best mates.

“It’s too early for your excitement Ashton!” Michael calls from somewhere behind Calum. Ashton is singing a Paramore song in Calum’s ear which normally wouldn’t be such a bad thing but now Calum is not having it. Just before Calum is about to drop him, Ashton hops down and starts running towards their tour bus. The large orange bus is waiting to take them to their first destination. They’re starting in Texas, working their way east, up the eastern seaboard, across eastern Canada, down into Michigan then to Missouri, over to Washington, then down the west coast to finish back in LA. The whole tour trail looks like a fat heart or a circle with a widow’s peak. No one can tell from Calum’s tired eyes but he’s absolutely buzzing with energy and excitement for this tour.

“I get a top bunk!” Ashton calls from the doorway where he’s hanging off the door frame. Calum can’t think of anyone who deserves to headline a tour more, nor is better for it than Ashton. He’s constantly on, the best with the fans, and hardly ever gets down. The only things that get hard are the negative reactions. But it just pushes Ashton on to do better. Michael and Calum are more chill, ice flowing through their veins opposed to Ashton’s fire.

Michael catches up to Calum. “Can you believe this?” His hair is a forest green this past month, bringing out the green around his pupils. While Ashton is made for the fans, Michael is made for the music. It still sends chills up Calum’s spine sometimes watching Michael play the guitar with his head cast down, singing into his mic. Michael can be standing in front of thousands of people, has been standing in front of thousands of people, and focus only on the music like he’s alone on the stage.

Michael plays guitar, Ashton’s on drums, and Calum plays bass. They all sing but Calum is referenced as the front man in articles just because he sings the majority of the solos. They all write the music with various other artists but their favorite tracks are the ones they write together, either just two of them or all three. Their biggest selling single they wrote in the back of their last tour bus, up one night with a beer haze and two acoustic guitars while Ashton clapped out a beat. They can’t remember what inspired it exactly, but people seem to like it.

Calum wraps his arm around Michael’s shoulders and replies, “Not really.”

*****

“You’ll never guess who I just saw.” Ashton barges into the room set up back stage in San Antonio for them. They have sound check in a little while and Ashton had wanted to go out and see the stage and check on his drums. Calum looks up from his phone to see Ashton standing in front of him and Michael, who’s on Facebook lying next to Calum. Ashton’s smile is bright, and his face is expectant, waiting for them to ask. Calum gives in.

“Who?” He continues playing Candy Crush.

Ashton pauses for dramatic effect before he says, “Luke Hemmings.”

Calum feels himself frown in confusion while Michael, who’d been ignoring Ashton in favor of stalking his ex girlfriend’s timeline, sits up straight and looks at Ashton. “Luke Hemmings? From chorus? That I used to hate?”

Ashton nods his head. “Yeah, he’s out setting up the drums. He’s working for Jerry, interning or something.” Jerry is their sound guy. If Calum’s mental math is right, Luke must’ve just graduated university.

“How is he?” Calum asks, turning his head back to scrolling through Twitter. He had never had a problem with Luke, that had been Michael’s thing. Calum, though, is kind of shocked that Luke ended up on their tour.

“Seemed good. I never really talked to him back in school, so I don’t know much about him,” Ashton sits down on Calum’s other side. “Just helped him with the drum placement, asked him what he was doing here. Seemed happy. Told me he was excited to work for us.”

“Is this going to be a problem?” Calum tilts his head toward Michael and raises an eyebrow.

Michael snorts. “Of course not. That was years ago. Besides, it’s not like we have to become besties.”

Ashton leans forward to look past Calum at Michael. “Why didn’t you like him anyway?”

Michael corrects him. “It’s not that I didn’t like him. I hated him.”

Calum interrupts. “Michael has no idea. I asked him around graduation and he just stared at me blankly.”

Ashton laughs at that. “So you’re telling me that you have some sort of weird feud with this guy, and you have no clue why?”

Michael looks up from his phone. “I know why. I hated him. Reason enough for me.”

Ashton just laughs harder and even Calum can’t help but grin. Calum can’t remember why Michael feels so strongly either, just remembers them sitting one day in chorus and Michael whispering about Luke in his ear while Luke sang a solo. From that point on, Michael would sneer whenever Luke was within ten feet. Calum thinks it shows how Michael has grown over the past four years, that he can sit there playing 2048 while his arch nemesis from high school sets up their instruments.

“I might go say hi.” Calum says, clicking off his phone and getting up to stretch out his back. They have their first performance for their tour in six hours and he’s just stifling a yawn. This tour is going to be hell on his sleep schedule.

Calum walks through the back passages that lead up to the stage. As he’s rounding the corner he sees the rows of chairs and the huge open space for the pit. This show is sold out and a part of him can’t believe that in just a few hours that blank spot is going to be filled with people wanting to hear their music. He’s nervous he’s going to let them down, or that maybe the band just isn’t made for arenas. He’s always thought they were best suited for little crappy bars with a slightly raised stages and the fans clearly visible. But he might be just nostalgic for the beginning of things. When it wasn’t a big deal if he slept with a fan because it wouldn’t end up on twitter the next day. When he wasn’t a face on a magazine who people wanted a picture with. He wouldn’t change anything about their lives now, they’re living the dream, but there was something about those simpler times that he misses.

It takes Calum a second to identify which one of the people onstage is Luke. He’s looking for a lanky blonde kid with long fringe and a body he hasn’t really grown into yet. It’s the eyes that he recognizes.

Luke is standing in the middle of the stage, right in front of Ashton’s drums. He looks like he was securing the drums to the stage but is now kind of just watching Calum with wide eyes and slightly parted lips. It’s the same look Calum had caught Luke wearing some times in school. Except back then, Luke would quickly duck his head and scurry off when he met Calum’s eyes. This Luke is still just watching Calum as Calum walks on stage.

This Luke is nothing like the Luke Calum remembers. Of course, none of them look as dorky as they did in school. The three of them grew into their bodies and are now considered sex symbols in some circles. Calum doesn’t know why he had pictured Luke maintaining that same awkward air. This Luke has broad shoulders and a more muscular body than Calum could ever have expected. His hair is pushed up into a bit of a quiff and is shorter. There’s no more acne, and he’s not wearing a polo. Luke is standing on the stage in a ripped band tee and skinny jeans and Calum thinks he looks like he belongs in the middle of a stage at a rock show.

Calum starts to walkover and Luke seems to panic a bit and bends back over to continue tightening the cymbals on Ashton’s drums. Luke shivers a bit when Calum calls his name. “Hey Luke.”

Luke stands straight up and turns around slowly, broad shoulders hunched in and knees bent a bit. “You know my name?”

Calum, seeing that while Luke has grown out of his physical awkwardness, still maintains a bit of that kid from school. “Of course mate, we went to school together. How’re you doing?”

Luke’s face splits into a blinding smile as he grips a little screwdriver in his fairly large fingers. “I’m good. Really good. How’re you?”

Calum holds his arms out and motions towards the arena. “Fucking great. You see that?” They adjust their positions so they’re standing side by side and looking out at the arena.

“Yeah, it’s incredible. You guys have come so far.” There’s a sense of awe in Luke’s voice that Calum has heard from countless fan’s but never expected would come out of Luke Hemming’s mouth.

“Thanks. So, you know what we’ve been up to. How about you?” Calum turns to look at the slightly taller Luke who is already watching him with a heavy stare that he seems to break out of when Calum speaks.

“Oh, me?” Luke runs a hand through his hair and rubs his neck, “Boring, just graduated uni. Majored in design technologies, focused on sound. I’m working under Jerry.” He waves with his hand in the direction of the sound booth in the middle of the arena.

“That’s cool. It’s good to have you with us. Familiar face and all.” Calum bumps his shoulder against Luke’s. Luke falters a bit but easily regains his footing.

“About that.” Luke turns to Calum. “Do you know if Michael still hates me? Should I hide or something?”

Just as Calum’s about to answer, Michael and Ashton come up on stage behind them. Michael calls out to them. “Luke! Good to see you!”

Luke’s jaw kind of drops a bit. Calum chuckles. “I wasn’t expecting that either.”

Michael walks over arm extended. “How are you?”

Luke takes a hesitant step forward and carefully takes Michael’s hand. “I’m...good. You?”

“Great. It’s going to be great tonight.” They drop hands. “Thanks for all the hard work. Means a lot to us.” Ashton is just grinning, the natural position of his face, next to Michael while Calum and Luke both give Michael a puzzled look.

Luke finally speaks. “So...do you not hate me anymore?” His face is so hopeful and vulnerable, Calum feels kind of bad.

“Well, I don’t really know you. But if you’re apart of the crew, you must be cool. Let’s just say I’m not stuck in the past. Good?” Michael makes a thumbs up at Luke who smiles wide and nods his head.

“Now that that’s taken care of, let’s do a sound check?” Ashton loops his arms around Michael and Calum’s neck and pulls them in. Time to get to work.

*****

It’s a few hours after their third show, this one in New Orleans, and Michael and Ashton have just crashed in their bunks on the tour bus. Calum has his laptop open on his lap in the quiet and is about to indulge in something he would never do if he thought the other boys would wake up and see: look at his tag on tumblr.

It’s not that he’s embarrassed about going on tumblr, where every few posts is a manip of him and Ashton kissing. It’s just... he doesn’t look that often and only when he wants to feel good about himself. He thought his playing had been a little off tonight and he just wants to be reassured that fans still love him. On twitter and instagram, the comments are always nice, albeit sexual, because it’s more public, but he wants honesty. Thus, tumblr, where people don’t hide how they feel.

He opens up an internet tab as he plays Blink 182 on youtube in another and types in the url that brings him to his blog. He doesn’t post much, maybe just funny cat videos and only so that he has a place to find them later. No one follows him, he’s just one of those poorly tended to blogs on tumblr. The only reason he has it is to track all the 5sos related tags. He goes to the Calum Hood tag and prepares himself for the possibly harsh comments.

Everyone loved the show. All the posts are really nice and supportive, people talking about how much they want to cuddle Calum as well as sleep with him. There are links to videos of the different songs as well as photos of them playing and jumping on stage. It always shocks Calum how fast people can do this, make these different posts for his band. They already paid for the ticket and went through the trouble to get there and now dozens of people from the crowd are sitting in front of their laptops painstakingly creating posts in a twisted sort of shrine to him and the other boys. He can’t believe how lucky they are.

As Calum scrolls, he notices something odd about a few of the pictures. He can’t seem to figure out how someone took them at that angle. The pictures are taken as if the person was standing directly to the side of them, rather than in the audience. Maybe a fan gave a camera to a person on crew to take a few pictures with? But that can’t be, there’s far too many and from all different songs, Calum can tell. And most of them are of him alone, framed just right. And they’re all from the same tumblr: calumsboy.tumblr.com.

Calum decides to click on the link to the person’s blog to see just how many pictures there are. He’s met with a well maintained blog with a picture of himself from an album cover a few years back as the header. Underneath it says _You might fangirl over Calum Hood, but I fanboy!_ Calum looks at the recent posts and sees they’re all the oddly angled pictures, they go back pages until he hits just a few reblogged text posts related to the last performance in Dallas. Calum decides to go back another page and there are even more pictures of that same odd angle except from the Dallas show. A few minutes later, Calum finds pictures from the San Antonio show.

Calum stops when it gets to buzz about the new tour. The owner of the blog was super excited for the tour. They, well, he, Calum is guessing, even hinted to the followers that he might get to meet Calum during the course of the tour. Calum is kind of puzzled. The posts were all made by the tumblr user, and no one else has pictures like it so the tumblr user must have taken them themselves. Which means that the tumblr user would have had to come to three shows in three different cities in four days? At those four shows, they would’ve convinced a crew member to take pictures for them. Based on the angle, he’s pretty sure the only person on crew who could’ve taken all the pictures is...Luke.

So someone, a boy, went to their last three concerts and made some sort of pact with Luke so Luke would take pictures for him? And the boy was going to probably meet Calum at some point during the tour? Had they already met? Calum had only met a few boys this tour, they have male fans but the fans who normally like to meet them are girls. In fact, he could count the boys he had met this tour on one hand. The two boys in Dallas, that one boy tonight who’d been out back when they’d left. And, well, the new staff, like Luke, but that didn’t really help since the person had to have been able to bribe people like Luke to take pictures...

Calum feels really stupid when he finally figures it out. Luke. It’s got to be Luke. Either a really unlikely scenario is happening or Luke is taking pictures of him at the shows every night and putting them on this blog. This blog devoted and in admiration of Calum.

Calum blushes. Oh. _Oh._ Luke... is a fan. A pretty hard core fan. Calum goes back farther, kind of feeling like he’s invading Luke’s privacy. There are text posts before the tour started that Luke seems to have written: _so excited to finally see Calum! I hope I don’t explode when I see him! But seriously, I don’t want to embarrass myself :/_ and _Oh my god! The new album is so amazing! Calum’s solos/lyrics are painful_ and _Did you see Calum on that magazine cover!?!?! HE looked so gooooooddddd!!!!!_

Well. This is an interesting turn of events. There’s a part of Calum that feels like he shouldn’t tell Luke that he knows about his blog. But Calum also knows that if he doesn’t tell Luke, Calum will look at this blog again and that might make things even more awkward as the tour continues. It seems only fair that both of them have to be a bit uncomfortable rather than Calum having to suffer the burden alone. Plus, these pictures that Luke are taking are really good, he should be getting paid for these. So Calum decides that he’s going to confront Luke the next day. It will be fine. They’re two mature adults. Even if Luke has a blog that looks like it’s run by a fifteen year old girl.

*****

The crew is setting up in Tallahassee by the time Calum wakes up the next day. They’re at the venue and Calum can hear people shouting directions outside over the gentle roar of fans chanting their lyrics in the distance. He gets up and gets dressed before heading out into the arena.

Calum finds Luke setting up the amps on the corners of the stage. There’s already a sheen of sweat on Luke’s brow and he’s focused on his task like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done. His large 6 foot and a few inches frame picks up each amp carefully, using his legs and not his back. Good form.

“Luke!” Calum calls and Luke freezes with the amp in his hands and just stands there, waiting for Calum to get closer.

“What’s up Calum?”

“Are you going to put down the amp?” Calum points at the large, 20 kilogram object that Luke is casually holding as his attention is undivided towards Calum. Luke seems puzzled for a second, then looks where Calum is pointing only to remember that he is indeed holding a very expensive piece of sound equipment.

“Oh! Yeah, give me a sec.” Rather than just drop the amp where they are, Luke goes to put it in its proper spot, dropping it lightly, then turning back to talk to Calum. His face drops a bit when he reaches Calum as Calum just kind of stares, a bit in awe of this person. “Was that all you needed to ask?”

“What? No.” Calum smiles. “I just...I was going to tell you that...” Calum doesn’t really know a way to say it that doesn’t translate to _I was creeping on my own tag last night and saw the blog that could only possibly be yours, also, I noticed that you have a bit of celebrity crush on me?_  “You’re a really good photographer and you should really be getting paid for your shots.” Calum’s got his hands in his back pockets as Luke takes in the words, a puzzled expression on his face.

“What shots-” Calum sees the moment when Luke realizes what Calum is saying. His eyes widen and he slaps a hand over his mouth. “No. Please tell me you’re not talking about what I think you’re talking about.”

Calum feels the blush rise in his cheeks and he buries his hands in his tight backjean pockets. “Sorry mate. I didn’t mean to, but it was kind of clear that you were the only one who could’ve taken the pictures.”

Luke’s arms are crossed in front of him and he’s looking down at the floor like he’s trying to count all the pieces of glitter speckling the surface. “I always thought celebrities lied when they said they looked on their tags.”

Calum feels really bad. He can’t imagine how embarrassed Luke must feel. “I’m so sorry Luke, I really didn’t mean to see your blog. But I’m serious about the photos. They’re really good quality and posed well. You could be our unofficial tour photographer or something, maybe make a few extra bucks on the side.”

Luke keeps his head ducked. “Thanks...can I...can I go now?”

Luke’s shifting a bit on his feet and Calum can see the pink of his cheeks spreading slowly to his ears. “Yeah, sure, yeah. See you later?” Calum phrases it like a question and Luke just nods quickly before walking swiftly away to help Jerry with more sound set up.

Shit. Well. Calum didn’t handle that well.

*****

That night in Tallahassee, Calum steps up to the mic about halfway through the set to the surprise of Michael and Ashton who were posed and ready to play 18. “Just wanted to give a shout out to a great guy on our crew. He's a good friend of mine back stage and a hard worker, let’s give it up for Luke Hemmings!” Ashton starts playing the drums and Michael yells into the mic as Calum looks offstage to see Luke grinning back. Calum plays better the second half of the show than he had the first.

*****

They’re in Miami when Calum decides to go for a walk after the show. They’re getting a break day tomorrow, which really only means they don’t have a show, so they won’t be leaving for Atlanta until the next morning.

Calum loves night walks. He prefers them with a beer in his hand and a girl on his arm but just walking the streets alone works for now.

It had been a great concert. Stupendous. The crowd had screamed and the boys had screamed and Calum’s stuck in this place between dreaming and living and he doesn’t know which one is better at this point. But he does know that he has the best job on the planet. He doesn’t walk for that long, just around the block where the arena is in Miami.

As he’s walking back towards the buses, Calum hears a guitar and a voice. The voice isn’t Mikey’s, Calum knows Mikey’s voice better than anyone else’s after hearing it played back in recording studios for hours. But it sounds like one of their songs, Beside You.

Calum rounds the corner of a bus and sees Luke in a folding chair with a guitar in his lap looking like a proper rock star. Except the fact that he’s in a parking lot. His voice is soft, but powerful, weighed down with emotion as he strums the chorus. His eyes are closed so he doesn’t see Calum watching him from only a few feet away. And Luke is good. Like good. Calum remembers Luke being one of the stars of their choral group but that had been with ballads and flashy musical numbers. They had had to fit their voice into a mold and Luke had done so well. Without the strict criteria of choral music but instead along the waves of the soft acoustic guitar and the no pressure pop rock, Luke excels. His fingers are easily playing the right chords like he’s played this song a thousand times before. To top it off, the moon is full and the only other light is a streetlamp a few yards away, painting Luke as a lone figure against an artfully lit backdrop. Calum is hit again with the feeling that Luke belongs on a stage.

“You’re good.” Calum close to whispers as Luke opens his eyes. Luke immediately takes on a deer in a headlight look as he pushes the guitar out towards his knees, trying to push away the evidence of what he’d just been doing.

“Sorry.” Luke says as he places the guitar back in his case.

“Wait.” Calum takes a few steps forward and sits down on the ground next to Luke’s chair. “You’re really good. Play more.” Luke just looks at Calum for a second, then rushes to get the guitar back out of the case.

“What do you want me to play?” he says quietly. Something about the moment feels fragile. Calum’s in a weird head space and he can’t get the photos that Luke took out of his head, lined up perfectly to show Calum at his best.

“Which of our songs do you know?”

Luke starts picking around with the strings and smiles. “All of them.”

Calum smirks. “All of them?” Luke turns to Calum, the faint blush that always seems to find it’s way on his face at least once during a conversation with Calum spreads lightly over the turned up corners of his mouth. He nods. “Do you know...Lost boy?” It’s a song from their first EP that they only played on their first, very small tour. It’s still one of Calum’s favorites and he always hugs fans extra tight when they bring that or any of their first songs up.

Luke starts right in on the chords. His voice drops down low for the part that Calum normally sings in a higher octave. “I can't remember the last time I saw your face...” Luke sings the first part of the verse and Calum can’t help but tap his hands along on his knees. Calum joins in for the second part of the first verse, singing the higher octave while Luke drops into a simple harmony. Luke’s smiling as he sings his part and takes cues from Calum as they sing through the first chorus together, Calum dropping out every few lines to let Luke keep singing. And it sounds pretty fucking good if he’s allowed to have an opinion on his own performance.

“So, you know all our songs?” Calum pulls his legs up and wraps his arms around his knees and leans back to look up at Luke who is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees over his guitar.

“If you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit of a fan.” Luke shrugs and smirks at Calum.

Calum laughs. “Yeah, I saw. Weird we weren’t friends back home.”

Luke just shrugs again. “Not really. Michael didn’t like me, you were friends with him. Makes sense.”

“Yeah, but I feel like we would’ve been good friends.”

Luke smiles. “Well we could be friends now.”

“Were you not listening during my shout out? We are friends.” Calum reaches out and bumps his fist against Luke’s knee.

“I forgot to thank you for that. A bunch of people started following me on twitter because of that. Got a couple hundred retweets on a picture of you guys rehearsing this morning.” Luke sits back and starts messing around on the guitar again.

“You know you really can get paid for that. Tour photographer is a job.”

Luke focuses on his left hand around the neck of the guitar. “It kind of defeats the purpose of taking them if I get paid. I take them for the fans like me, who want to know more about you guys behind the scenes. It’d feel weird if I got paid.”

Calum chuckles. “I can’t believe that Luke Hemmings, that guy that Mikey hated, is a part of the fam.” Luke looks up at that and smiles.

“Hey, I never hated him. It was all on his part. Besides, you guys make great music. I wasn’t not going to like you just because we kind of knew each other.”

Now it’s Calum’s turn to avoid Luke’s gaze. “Thanks, means a lot.”

Luke nods his head once. “So, how’s the next album going? Everyone’s really excited for it.”

Ah. The new album. They had started a little bit of recording, and Michael and Ashton had written a bunch of songs for it, but Calum had yet to write anything. He just can’t figure out what to write. He hasn’t been in a relationship for a few years, so there’s no really feelings there to write about. He wouldn’t know how to tackle a song about friendship, the words are too hard to find for the indescribable feeling of touring with your two best mates. And he’s sure no one would want to listen to an ode to his xbox. “It’s good. Ash and Mikey wrote some great stuff that’s sounding really good. We’re going to record the rest after this tour.”

“What about you? What have you written?” Luke is sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting patiently for Calum to speak.

“Well...I haven’t really written much yet.”

“What?!” Luke squeaks and covers his mouth, even more shocked than Calum is by the sound that just left his mouth. “I mean, what?” he pitches his voice lower and Calum can’t help but laugh at that. The laugh that hurts his stomach and makes his face 50% mouth. Luke starts laughing quietly too until they’re both gasping for air they’re laughing so hard.

“But seriously,” Luke composes himself a bit but his smile is still wide and his eyes are light. Calum’s laying back on the asphalt looking up at him, smiling back. “Why haven’t you written anything? You’re stuff is always my favorite.”

“Ah, the calumsboy makes sense now. Big fan of my musical talent, mate?” Calum didn’t mean to go there, but at the same time he knows they need to get it out there so it’s not too awkward for the tour. So he teases Luke, trying to show it’s ok.

Luke grins and blushes, Calum’s seen Luke with pink cheeks more than not, and goes back to fiddling with the strings on the guitar. “That among other things.”

Calum flicks a pebble at Luke’s foot. “I just haven’t got any inspiration. I don’t do much worth writing about.”

Luke shakes his head, speaks with that hint of awe in his voice. “But you’re Calum Hood.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve just got a bit of writer’s block. But I’ve got until the end of tour. Maybe I’ll come up with something.”

Luke puts the guitar away and stands, one arm behind his back holding the opposite elbow and one knee bent. The posture of uncertainty. “If you do, and you, like, if you want anyone’s opinion and the others are busy or something...I’m here.”

Calum stretches his neck up to meet Luke’s eyes that are looking down at the ground. “Thanks Luke.”

“See ya tomorrow.” Luke gives a little wave as he walks away. Calum stays there a few minutes, trying to think up some song lyrics. He has nothing.

*****

“Luke!” They’re hanging out backstage a couple of hours before the Charleston show. The door is open and Calum calls out to Luke when he sees his tall figure pass by the doorway.

“Yeah?” Luke pauses in the doorway, one hand on the jamb ready to go do what ever it is that sound assistants do when they’re not catering to the whims of the artists. Of course, most other sound assistants wouldn’t have even stopped. But Luke’s a fan.

“Tell Ashton he can’t date a girl when he’s already slept with her sister.” Calum’s lying down on a couch, exhausted after hearing the tale that Ashton had laid out for him and Michael. Michael is propped up on the other couch with a guitar while Ashton is on his computer on the floor, leaning up against Calum’s couch.

Luke takes hardly a second before he’s responding. “Yeah, you just don’t do that.”

“You didn’t hear the story! There’s extenuating circumstances.” Ashton looks up, exasperated, to speak before he turns back down to his computer where he’s messaging the girl.

“Good thing,” Calum jumps in before Ashton can start again. “Because it was fucked up.”

“It’s not that fucked up. It was just a misunderstanding.”

“Tell him the short version.” Michael interjects.

As Luke walks in and takes a seat next to Michael, Ashton begins his story. “I was at this bar when we were home and I met this awesome chick. Really beautiful, funny. We hit it off. I had to use the bathroom so I left for a couple seconds, when I get back, I take her home. Turns out I had taken home the girl’s sister by mistake, they had both been at the bar and it was dark. But I really like her, the first girl, so we were planning on meeting up when we get back. But Calum here,” Ashton points up at him without looking, “says I should cancel.”

 “Ash, think about it. What happens when she takes you to a family dinner and your one night stand is sitting across the table from you?” Calum pokes Ashton’s shoulder as he speaks to punctuate his point.

“I agree with Calum,” Luke speaks up from the couch. “Just not something you do.”

“Now I see why you hated him Mikey.” Ashton jokingly says to Michael who snorts. “It was an honest mistake.”

“Hey,” Calum says, “Life’s a tangled web.” He feels proud of his little philosophical sentence and goes to the notes section of his phone to write down the possible future lyric.

Luke grins, “Yeah, of cell phone calls and hashtag I don’t knows.”

Calum pauses his typing to look over at Luke. Luke is nervously checking his watch, and Calum realizes they’ve probably kept him too long and he has non sitting on his ass work to do. “What did you just say?”

Luke’s eyebrows draw together a bit. “Uh, cell phone calls and hashtag I don’t knows? Something like that?”

Calum types the words into his phone because those would make some good lyrics. “You mind if I used that in a song?”

It’s comical the way that Luke’s face lights up. “Yes!” He practically screams and causes Michael to jump a bit.

“Jesus, Hemmings, calm down.” Luke does not listen to Michael and continues to smile wide with his hands clutched at his chest.

Calum grins back at him. “Thanks mate.”

*****

Calum can’t get the words out of his head during the entire concert that night. _Life’s a tangled web of cell phone calls and hashtag I don’t knows._ They’re the perfect opening lyrics to a song, the definition of an age. Their age. He needs to write this song. The problem is that he doesn’t have anything else. He spends all night in his bunk trying to write something, anything, but he can’t. He falls asleep pitying himself as the sun starts to rise and he only has a few hours to sleep and he still only has crossed out non sensical words on the page. He doesn’t even know what type of song those lyrics would open but he knows they’re perfect.

Calum spends the few hours he has before the show in Richmond with a guitar in his hand, on the tour bus while everyone else goes and runs around doing professional things. He’s got a yellow legal pad and a blue pen sitting next to him on the couch with those lyrics at the top of the page.

“Calum?” Luke peeks his head in the open door of the tour bus. “There you are! No one knew where you were.” Luke steps up into the tour bus and tentatively stands in front of a chair, seeming to wait for permission to sit.

Calum nods for him to plop down.“Sorry, do they need me?” He hopes not, he at least wants to make some progress on this song. It’s a bitch, because he never has this much trouble writing. Maybe it’s because he used Luke’s words. It’s like the song writing gods are telling him it’s plagiarism. _I’ll give him a writing credit, just help me write the damn song_.

“No, Mikey was just curious. You weren’t answering your phone.” Calum had left his phone is his bunk so as not to distract him. “It’s odd for you to be disconnected.”

Calum shifts his eyes from the chords his fingers are mapping out, trying to find a good progression, to Luke. “Hmm?”

Luke fidgets a bit, holding one arm in the other. “You’re always on your phone. We all texted you to see where you were but you didn’t answer. You were disconnected from the world.”

Calum pauses for a second before he quickly writes the word DISCONNECTED in all caps below they lyrics on the page. That could work, a song about being disconnected, away from the tangled web of the real world! Progress!

“What are you doing?” Luke is leaning on the edge of his seat, trying to see what exactly Calum is writing.

“I’m trying to write a song. You must be a good luck charm.” Calum smiles at Luke who looks like he’s going to pass out from the euphoria he’s found himself in. Calum strums a few chords and tries to figure out a melody. “I’m disconnected. I get disconnected. Let’s get disconnected....do any of those sound good?” Luke just does a small shaky nod, his body compressed as small as it can, not wanting to disturb Calum. “What about this: We get so disconnected?”

“That sounds great.” Luke smiles at Calum in awe.

Calum remembers his phone tucked away in his bunk and plays again. “We put the world away, we get so disconnected.” Luke’s smile is so wide, growing a degree every time Calum looks up. “You really are my good luck charm Luke.” Calum quickly scribbles down the words, thinking he’s at least got part of a chorus.

“If you ever need me, just let me know.” Luke sits back in his chair, still hunched in but seeming to grow a bit in confidence.

“Do you mind sticking around a bit? It’d be a big help...” Calum suggests, not wanting to Luke make feel obligated in anyway. Of course, Luke looks like his dreams are coming true.

“Sure! Want me to write what you come up with?” Luke reached out for the pad and pen and Calum gives them over.

“Don’t be afraid to make suggestions. Now do you think it should be a G or a C here?”

By the time they need Calum back stage and Jerry is close to firing Luke, they have a working chorus and a basic melody. Calum tried to play it with a more serious, ominous tone but Luke piped in saying he liked the poppier beat. They debated about the intent, should it be a love song, a friendship song, a generation song? It was Luke who said a cutesy not in your face love song was the best. In the end, they both left with smiles on their faces and a high five for all their progress.

*****

They’re in Philadelphia when Calum is struck speechless. Literally. He wakes up and realizes immediately that something is up with his throat.

Calum opens the curtain on his bunk and sees Luke in the little kitchenette down the aisle. Calum had asked Luke the night before to stay on the bus with them as they drove up to Pennsylvania. After the show, he had inspiration for the rest of the first verse and the two of them had pieced together a good first minute of the song. Now Luke is making coffee and Calum attempts to call out to him but only a squawk leaves his throat.

Luke looks up at the noise with furrowed brows. “Calum? Was that you?” Calum nods his head and points to his throat, still exhausted from not enough sleep. “Can you not speak?” Calum nods and Luke looks like his life flashes before his eyes. And then he has a panic attack. “Ok, everything will be alright. Ok. Ok. I’m...I’ll go get Mikey and Ashton...and then I’ll make you tea. Actually tea first? To help your throat?” He’s running his fingers through his hair and pacing. Calum points towards the door and mouths _Go! Mikey! Ashton!_ before Luke gets a grip on himself. “Right, get the guys and then tea. I’ll be right back.”

Calum flops back on the bed as Luke runs outside. He feels like crap, both emotionally and physically. He’s probably sick because he hasn’t been sleeping enough lately. But he can’t believe he’s going to let down the fans like this. Knowing himself and how he’s like when he’s sick, he won’t have his voice back until at least tomorrow, and there’s no telling when he’ll be able to belt the songs again. They’ve been lucky and have never had to cancel a show before but it seems like their streak is over.

“Calum?” Ashton is suddenly in his space, bending down into the bunk. “you ok?” Calum nods but is then overcome by a coughing fit, negating his nod. “Can you speak at all?” Calum attempts again but only a squeak comes out so he shakes his head. “Shit.”

Calum mouths the words _I’m sorry_. Luke brings him a cup of tea with honey while Ashton and Michael talk about what they’re going to do.

“The fans will understand if we have to cancel. We’ll just come back at the end of the tour. It’s actually a good time for this, we have that three day break starting tomorrow before New York City.” Michael is far too calm for Calum’s liking. Ashton’s liking too.

“But we can’t do that to them. They’ve been tweeting all day. Maybe we could cover his solos? Could you still play the bass Calum?” Calum nods while Michael shakes his head.

“It wouldn’t sound right with just two voices, besides, you on the drums would end up missing a bunch of cues. We’d need someone else to fill in and it’s not like Calum comes with an understudy.” Michael is talking with his hands and Calum can see Luke standing to the side in the gaps between Michael’s moving arms. Oh. Maybe Calum does have an understudy.

Calum reaches for the note pad next to his head and pulls the top off the pen with his teeth. He writes LUKE and shoves it in Ashton’s face. Ashton turns to Calum, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Luke? Like Hemmings, Luke? does he even know our songs?” Calum nods his head vigorously as he sits up on his bunk and takes the pen and pad back _. All of them_ he writes. Calum sees Luke stepping back as Michael and Ashton look down at the pad.

Ashton is still unconvinced. “No offense Luke,” he turns to look at Luke who has squished his 6 foot plus frame into the size of roughly a toddler, “but we don’t even know if you’re good.”

Michael interjects there. “Well, not saying we should do this, but Luke was the lead soloist in chorus back in school. So I’m sure he can still carry a tune. But would the fans mind is my question.” Michael is leaning back with arms crossed and Ashton is biting his lip trying to figure out what to do.

Calum writes _We’ll explain, he’s really good, they’ll like him, tell him to sing!_ Ashton reads what Calum writes first. He gives Calum a questioning glance then turns back to Luke. “Calum told you to sing something, but you don’t have to.”

Luke looks a bit hesitant, pausing, breathing, and Calum honestly thinks he’s not going to sing. But he does. “Simmer down, simmer down,” Luke sings and it’s fantastic. “They say were too young now to amount to anything else.” He finishes off the verse and sings the first part of the chorus only to be met by a stunned Michael and Ashton while Calum beams from the glory of his brilliant idea.

Ashton speaks first, hesitantly. “And you know all our songs?”

Luke nods. “Every word.”

Michael looks at Ashton, then at Calum, before looking over at Luke. “Luke Hemmings, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but will you perform with us later?”

*****

The lights dim and they run on stage to the screams of the crowds in Philadelphia. They set it up, rather than their triangle configuration with Calum and Michael equal distance from center, so that Luke has a microphone off to the side and Calum is center stage with his bass while Michael is next to him. They all exchange looks and Mikey starts off with The Only Reason.

The fans are going wild, seeming not to realize that Calum doesn’t have a mic in front of him and that there is a rando person on the stage. They had decided it’d be for the best if Luke just sang exactly what Calum normally did. Which ended up being a majority of the melodies in the choruses and a fair share of solos. It was good because the melodies were the easiest to follow but it also meant Luke was carrying most of the songs.

As Michael’s verse winds down, right before Luke will sing what Calum normally does, Calum takes a deep breath. He hopes it had been a good idea to do this show rather than postponing. He hopes the fans don’t mind that Luke is performing. He hopes his snap judgement suggestion will work out for the best.

“All the crossed wires.” Luke sings strong into the mic, even better than he had when they were rehearsing earlier. The live audience has that affect on some people, making them better than they could ever be alone. “Just making us tired, is it too late, to bring us back to life?”

There is a bit of a lull in screaming right when Luke starts singing, but by the time they hit the chorus, the fans are louder than ever. They have no idea who this person on stage with the band is but they seem to recognize Luke’s talent and Calum is so thankful, it doesn’t look like this is going to blow up in their faces.

They finish off the song, Calum with a relieved smile on his face, and are met with huge applause. “Philadelphia! How are you?!” Michael calls out to be met by screams. It never really gets old, the energy and buzz of people calling out your names. “Before we get the show started, you’re probably wondering why Calum isn’t singing.”

Ashton interrupts. “The questions running through your mind are probably ‘why are there four people on stage?’ and ‘who is this dashing piece of man singing Calum’s parts?’” Ashton began a drumroll. “The answer to the second one is....Luke Hemmings!” The crowd goes wild, no doubt some of them know who Luke is from the shout out Calum had done near the beginning of tour.

Michael continues. “Yes, my old nemesis Luke Hemmings. He is filling in for Calum because Calum woke up and had no voice. We didn’t want to deprive you guys of a show so we forced Luke to fill in, that good with everyone?” Screams. “Luke, you good?”

Luke steps up to his mic, which he had walked a good 8 feet away from. “Yeah, I’m good. I don’t really know what to do with my hands but. What are you going to do?” He holds his hands up in defeat.

But Michael answers him. “Luke, you play the guitar right?” Luke nods. “If you want to get one, we’d wait. We’ve always talked about adding more guitar, we can give it a test run. That ok with you Philadelphia?” Screams.

“Um, I don’t have an electric guitar nearby?” Luke hovers over the mic like he is afraid it is going to bite him.

“Get one of my extras, they’re should be a few right off stage.” Michael points and Luke gladly runs off. As they wait, Ashton and Michael joke into their mics and Calum gets close to the crowd to wave and smile at the people closest to the stage. Calum looks over his shoulder when the crowd roars a fraction louder. Luke has joined them onstage again.

Clad in a cut up t shirt, skinny jeans, hair quiffed up, and now sporting one of Michael’s guitars, Luke looks like this is the only place he ever could belong. Calum’s jaw drops at the new confidence the guitar has seemingly given Luke. Luke returns to his mic, gets right up close to it and holds it in his right hands and says “I’m ready when you guys are.”

*****

“Mate, that was sick.” Ashton has his arm around Luke’s shoulder as they’re walking back to the buses after signing albums and posters with the fans. “Thanks for that. Really saved our asses.”

“It was actually a dream come true for me so you don’t really have to thank me.” Luke is playing it off like it was nothing. It was everything. He knew all the songs perfectly and the addition of the extra guitar freed Michael up to experiment a bit with the songs. The crowd absolutely loved it. Luke’s awesome and Calum isn’t afraid to admit it. He has great ideas.

They’re in front of their bus and Luke makes to keep going but Calum grabs the back of his shirt. Luke turns and Calum nods his head at the door to their bus, motioning for Luke to stay on their bus again. They do have an extra bunk, plus Calum wants to go on tumblr and see what people are saying about the show. So he mouthes tumblr at Luke and, as if it is the magic word, Luke follows him onto the bus.

“Calum.” Michael says as they mount the steps inside. “He’s not a stray. You can’t force him to sleep here if he’d rather stay somewhere else.”

“It’s ok.” Luke smiles with his hands in his pockets. “We were going to go on tumblr, see what people are saying.” Woah. Luke’s a mind reader. Or that’s just the only logical explanation for Calum mouthing tumblr at him, but still. Impressive.

Calum goes to get his laptop and the others find seats in the couch area of the bus. Calum pulls up his blog and goes to the 5sos tagged page.

“Wow.” Michael says from over Calum’s right shoulder while Luke is speechless on his left.

“What is it?” Ashton call from the chair. “I can’t see.”

“Luke.” Michael says. “Tumblr loves you.” Indeed they do. Seventy five percent of the tag is pictures of Luke, gifs of Luke, things Luke said to the crowd when he was being adorkable. Not Calum’s opinion, the consensus on tumblr. There’s links to all the songs and people commenting on what they thought of Luke. They all love him.

“Guys.” Ashton is on his phone, scrolling and reading. “They’ve made tags on twitter. #5sos4members #canwekeephim and #ishipcalm. What’s calm?”

Luke’s voice drops low as he raises his hand to his mouth. “Oh my god. They added me to your ship name.” His eyes are wide as the other three stare at him, not really knowing what he’s talking about. “We call you CAM. You know, Calum, Ashton, Michael. It’s an OT3.”

Michael cuts him off with the wave of a hand. “Stop speaking tumblr. What do we do about all this? Just let it die down?”

“I think,” Ashton speaks up from the other side of the room, “we talk about that in the morning. Tonight we celebrate a great show and Luke’s first time performing to an arena.” They all agree to getting slightly drunk and playing fifa even though Ashton and Michael don’t like it that much. They have a great time though, and Calum feels like maybe it was meant to be the four of them. Maybe the fans are right. Maybe 5sos needs a new member.

*****

“We’ve talked about this before guys. We wanted another voice and another guitarist to round out our sound. Plus we get on with him well and the fans love him. I see no down side.” Calum had woken up with only a little rasp in his voice and is terribly happy about it. He has no idea how he’d be able to lobby for Luke joining the band without being able to talk.

Luke is off doing something sound person-y and the boys had decided to have a band meeting. They had woken to find numerous articles and music reviews from people in Philadelphia who had said Luke had made a great addition to their band. Tumblr loved him, twitter loved him, Facebook. Everyone seems to think adding Luke to the band is a great idea. Because it is. Luke is stupid talented and Calum wants that talent helping them out. Calum’s right, he just has to convince Ashton and Michael.

“But can we just do that? Aren’t there rules about adding band members? Like, is the middle of tour a good time to add someone?” Michael is hesitant about the logistics of it all. Calum’s pretty sure he’s converted Ashton.

“It’s our band, we can do whatever we’d like, I think. As long as the fans like it. But do we really want Luke to join? Or is this just media peer pressure we’re feeling?” Ashton says, head resting on his hand.

“We want Luke! Come on guys, he went to school with us, we know him. And have you listened to the stuff from last night? It’s incredible.”

“It is.” Ashton looks over at Michael and they have a little eye conversation.

“Okay.” Michael finally says. But before Calum can run out and tell Luke the news, “But as a trial. We’ll try it until the end of tour. If he wants too. Then we’ll re-evaluate.”

“Sweet.” Ashton says but it’s just a whisper to Calum who is already out the door, looking for Luke. He walks around the lot for a bit, asks a few people where Luke might be. One guy points him towards the bus that all the sound guys use. Sure enough, Luke is in front of the bus with a few other guys in fold up chairs, most of them with cigarettes between their fingers but Luke’s holding a pick and the neck of the guitar. He’s playing and laughing along with the older guys.

“Luke!” Luke looks up as Calum walks over.

“Hey Calum!’ Calum stops right next to Luke’s chair and looks him in the eyes as he pitches his voice into a serious tone. “Luke Hemmings. I’m here to offer the position as new band member of 5 Seconds of Summer. Do you accept?”

Calum can’t help but smile when Luke’s face lights up. “Are you serious?”

Calum shrugs. “Yeah, like on a trial basis, but I’m sure we’ll keep you.”

Luke shoots up and holds out the hand not gripping his guitar. “Thank you so much. I won’t let you guys down. I promise. Thank you.”Luke is shaking Calum’s hand hard. Calum’s arm comes up to hug him, they are in a band together now, and Luke readily accepts it. Even if it all fails miserably, Calum’s glad that he got to make Luke this happy just for a moment.

The sound guys clap around them and congratulate Luke and Luke can’t wipe the smile off his face for hours.

*****

They work that first day of their break rearranging the songs so Luke can have solos and harmonies and guitar parts. Luke is good and none of them mind giving up their days off to tirelessly rearrange the music they all love to make it sound even better by adding a new complexity to it. And it helps that they all, even Luke, know the songs inside and out. Some of it’s easy and some of it’s hard but in the end they’re all happy with the results.

They decide not to tweet or anything, announce it at the New York City show. It’s not like the videos won’t go up on youtube or people won’t tweet about it as soon as it happens.

It’s about an hour before they’re first show as an official foursome and Calum can’t find Luke. Michael, Ashton, and Calum are hanging around backstage, getting pumped to play in one of the most famous cities in the world. But Luke’s not there.

Calum isn’t sure when or how it happened but Luke has become some what of a best friend. It had taken years of Michael’s steady presence in Calum’s life to be put in the best friend zone. Ashton had been their drummer first and it was’t until they had spent months filled with Ashton’s easy laughter that Calum actually considered him someone to rely on. But here, barely two weeks into the tour, Calum finds himself just as reliant on Luke as the other two boys. Maybe even more so with Luke because Luke cares about Calum in a way that Calum really shouldn’t exploit. But it’s nice, having a person around who adores you and isn’t really afraid to show it. Calum finds himself spending hours a day within arms distance of Luke. They constantly make each other laugh and have inside jokes, and so what if Calum finds himself reaching out and casually touching Luke the way that he touches people he’s known for years.

But Calum doesn’t think this is going to evolve into anything. He’d be lying to himself he didn’t recognize how aesthetically pleasing Luke is. He’d also be lying if he tried to tell himself he wouldn’t date a man. Not something he’s open about, but the idea has never bothered him per se. He’s drunkenly kissed enough men to know that he’s not repulsed by the idea of being sexually involved with one, in fact far from it. But Luke’s a part of the band now. And Luke’s crush on Calum is bordering idol worship. Nothing can happen between them. Too odd of a start to have a healthy relationship.

Yet, Calum still finds himself getting out of his chair, stretching before he goes in search of the man of the hour, the new member of 5sos. Calum finds Luke outside, sitting hunched against a wall, knees folded into his body and head resting against his knees. Calum can hear the ragged breaths coming from Luke’s mouth and slides down the wall next to him. “Hey.” He greets softly, Luke continues to stare at the ground. “You good?”

“Yeah.” Luke breathes out. “Just, this is crazy.”

“It’s what you want, right?”

Luke turns to look at Calum, eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? This is literally the craziest dream I could think up. A month ago, I was hoping you would notice me and now I’m in the band. It’s ridiculous.” Luke trails off, eyebrows furrowing a bit.

“Hey, we wouldn’t just do this because we like you, you know? It’s because you’re talented and you’d make a good addition to the band. Prove us right. You ready?”

*****

As the lights come up and the opening chords start playing, the crowd is louder than ever before. It might have to do with Luke Hemmings front and center. Calum and Michael didn’t feel comfortable taking the center stage, used to their corners, so they set up Luke in the center with his guitar and skinny jeans. They changed the set list up a bit, adding a few of their older songs that sounded better with multiple guitars and took out some of the songs that were focused too much on one person.

Calum looks over at Luke strumming along with Try Hard as Calum sings. And it feels right, like this is the way this band should’ve been from the beginning. Maybe their careers would have been completely different if Luke had always been there. Luke’s a natural, bending low and winking at the girls in the front row, walking over to Michael’s microphone to get in his space. He owns the stage and the fans are loving it.

The first song ends and the crowd roars. Calum can see Ashton has already worked up a sweat as he stands with a fist raised towards the crowd. As always, Michael greets the crowd first. “How ya doing New York?” Michael grabs the mic with both hands, staring out into the crowd. They had planned out the next bit before the show a bit, how they were going to announce Luke to everyone. “Hey guys,” Michael turns back to Ashton and Calum, seeming to not notice Luke. “Do we sound a little different tonight?”

It’s Ash next. “Yeah, I thought the same thing. But I think we sound better, right? Maybe we’re just better?”

Calum is laughing but its his turn so he tries to hide the grin spread across his face. “Luke, when did you get here?”

Luke leans into the mic, a lazy smile on his lips as his eyes flicker between Calum and the crowd. “I, well, I actually played the first song with you. So a few minutes I guess?”

Michael fakes realization. “Oh! That’s why we sounded so good! Maybe we should keep you up here for the rest of the show?” The crowd had been screaming along dutifully and now are going crazy. Calum wonders what they’ll do at the next part. The four of them turn into their mics as Michael draws out “Orrrrr....” and they all scream together “For the rest of the tour!”

The crowd freaks out. Because of the lights, Calum can’t really see anything besides the first few rows of people squished together trying to reach the stage. But the sound waves coming off the crowd are amazing. Calum’s sure everyone after the show will have lost their voice.

Ashton pipes in after the roaring goes down a bit. “Yes, we would like to officially invite Luke Hemmings to join us for the rest of the tour. You guys seemed pretty up for it, and we’ve always wanted another guitar mixed in, so we got Luke here.”

Calum tacks onto the end of Ashton’s more serious words. “We ship CALM.”

Luke has been standing center stage, bright smile on his face, hands on his guitar as he listens to the other boys. He steps up to his mic now. “Thanks so much lads,” he points out at the fans, “and you. Thank you so much because without you I wouldn’t be up here. You guys made my dream come true and I’m so grateful. I’m going to try not to let you down.” Calum doesn’t know how or why, but that night in New York becomes his favorite show ever. Maybe there’s just something nice about having an extra person on stage to mess with.

*****

“Luke!” Calum is sitting in the front part of their tour bus as the other boys are all standing, discussing how the performance went. Michael’s eyes are wide as he gestures frantically about how awesome that one part in Unpredictable was while Ashton’s got an arm slung around Luke’s shoulders nodding along with Michael. Luke’s just standing there, smile practically falling off his face it’s so big and a slight flush on the apples of his cheeks.

And it’s not that Calum’s jealous. Because he’s not, he’s happy for Luke. Calum’s grinning from his seat with his guitar next to him, glad that this all worked out and Luke slotted into this mess like a puzzle piece. But still, Michael hated Luke for years, and Ashton hardly spoke to Luke so far this tour except when necessary. It’s been Calum and Luke hanging out the past few weeks, working on this song that they had to put on the back burner because of the rearranging and practicing for the show. But now Calum wants to get back to it.

Calum has to literally reach out and tug on Luke’s pants to get him to look over. And Luke does, still grinning form ear to ear off the post show vibes. Calum keeps tugging on Luke’s pants until Luke stumbles out of Ashton’s grip and falls into Calum’s lap. Wasn’t exactly what Calum was trying for, but it works. He wraps his arms around Luke’s waist and stakes his claim. “Mine!”

Michael crosses his arms over his chest. “You can’t hog him Calum, he’s a person. Luke gets to decide what he wants to do.” Michael holds his hand out to Luke, offering help up but Luke just holds onto Calum’s arms.

“I’m good here actually.” Luke snuggles back a little closer in Calum’s arms and Calum gives a triumphant smile as Michael and Ashton shake their heads and go to the back of the bus.

Luke makes to get off Calum’s lap, but Calum doesn’t let him. “Wait a sec, get my laptop. Let’s check tumblr.” Luke grabs the laptop that Calum has next to him on the couch and Luke logs on to his tumblr. Luke stays on Calum’s lap, totally normal in his opinion, something he’d do with any of the boys. It feels good to wrap his arms around someone.

“What do you want to check first? The popular blogs or the 5sos tag?” Luke looks over his shoulder down at Calum.

“Check the tag.” Luke goes to his tracked tags and finds the 5sos one. It’s overwhelmingly positive, hundreds of posts about how good they were tonight and how happy people are that Luke is a part of it. As predicted, there are a few people who appear to be 5sos purists and think the addition of Luke was a bad move, but the number of posts is few and Calum knows they’re wrong anyways.

But then Calum starts to notice something. “What’s that tag?”

“This one?” Luke hovers over one that says _fabulousfour_ and Calum skakes his head.

“No, the next post down. It says cake? Doesn’t that have to do with butts?” It’s a picture of Luke and Calum looking at each other during one of their songs. But it’s not of their backs, so it doesn’t really make sense. And he saw the tag on a few other pictures so it’s not just the one person using it.

Luke clicks on it. It’s pictures of the two of them from various points in the show, pointing at each other, singing into the same mic. Some are even gifs with things they said to each other during the show.

Luke starts laughing “It’s our ship name! Calum and Luke? Cake? I can’t believe they already did this.”

“Oh.” Calum says, not really knowing what else to say. They’re are even pictures from back when Calum gave Luke a shout out. Calum knows shipping is no big deal, they’re people who ship all different combinations of the boys, but this is just a lot really fast. Luke’s only been a part of the band three days. “I wonder if they put me with the other guys too.” Luke mumbles as he types in different variations of michael and luke, lichael is a bust but muke hits.

There are a few posts, Luke with his back against Michael in the opening song, Michael with an arm slung around Luke’s shoulders near the end. But just a few scrolls in, the page ends. “Not as much on that one. Doubt there will be much with Ashton.” Luke checks anyways, and as expected, there are only about 10 posts on the lashton page.

“Go back to ours.” Calum bumps Luke’s arm with his hand that is still wrapped tightly around Luke’s waist.

“Oh, people are writing text posts.” Luke scrolls through the pictures and lands on a cluster of text posts that are full of key smashing and exclamation points. Calum gathers that people think it’s adorable how Luke and Calum interact. The tumblr users are analyzing how they are looking at each other, their smiles.

Luke breaks the scrolling and mumbles, “Oh no.”

“What?” Calum had been looking at a post about Luke blushing on stage.

“They found my blog.” He has his face buried in his hands and the tips of his ears are red. Luke had scrolled to a text post that outlined a bunch of ‘proof’ that Luke had to be the owner behind calumsboy. Apparently Luke had given out details before on his page, along with the photos looking like the one on his public twitter and the fact that calumsboy, a major Calum blog, hadn’t posted for the past two shows, proved that he had to run calumsboy. Which meant everyone knew about how Luke felt about Calum. “This is so embarrassing. Now everyone knows...” Luke stopped mid sentence, probably realizing he was in Calum’s lap still.

“Hey, is it really any more embarrassing than when I found out?” Calum tries to put Luke at ease, holding him just the fraction of a bit tighter and raising an eyebrow.

Luke smiles, “I guess not.”

“Besides, everyone in the fandom can freak out and have a bit of fun at your expense, like an initiation to the band. Now, can we work on Disconnected?”

Luke looks at the computer for a second then shakes his head.“Sorry, mate. Can we work on it tomorrow? I’m just kind of wiped from the show.”

Calum tries to not look too disappointed. “Oh. Yeah, that’s fine. I’m sure you’ll get used to it soon.”

Luke smiles. “Thanks. Good night.” He gets up, slowly unraveling himself from Calum’s limbs, and heads to the bunks leaving the laptop next to Calum. Calum stays on the cake tag until he reaches the end. It takes awhile.

*****

Calum doesn’t know what makes him say it. Maybe his minds still wrapped up in the cake tag he stayed up looking through the night before. Maybe he wants to create more buzz with rumors of a possible secret relationship. Maybe he’s just high on the adrenaline of performing. Or maybe, probably, but he’s going to pretend for it to be a maybe, Luke just looks really fucking hot onstage.

“Luke, can I just say, you look quite sexy right now.” It’s right after Out of my Limits and Calum had been practically hypnotized by Luke during the first half of the song. During the second verse, Luke had moved over to Calum’s mic, sang some of the words with Calum and Calum had completely lost track of what he was doing. Rather than finishing the verse he kind of just mumbled into the microphone while steadily glaring at Luke. Luke of course, had started out with a smirk that had quickly turned to laughter.

So Calum decides after the song to just say whats on his mind. Because Luke was quite sexy. Distractingly sexy. After he says it, Luke’s jaw kind of drops, Ashton starts laughing and Michael steps up to his mic.

“Really Calum, are you trying to imply Ashton and I are not quite sexy? I feel betrayed.” Michael says over the screams.

Calum leans back into the mic. “Of course not Mikey, you and Ashton are both also quite sexy. Luke just looks especially so.”

Luke has gone from rock god to shy penguin in seconds.“Why thank you Calum. You also are looking quite sexy.”

Ashton jumps in, catches his breath long enough to speak. “Hey Boston, do you think we look sexy?” Screams, the soundtrack of their lives it seems, “Thanks! You also look quite sexy!” The fans go so crazy that they just plough into their next song. Calum knows that later there will be tons of post speculating on the nature of Calum and Luke’s relationship. And he really doesn’t care.

*****

It becomes a thing after the Boston show. At least once during a show, Calum will call out Luke for being sexy or hot or some other similar phrase. One time Calum said Luke was his teenage dream and Michael had started a rendition of Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream. Luke always blushed, smiled, or laughed. He seemed to find it funny and Luke would always sit with Calum after the show as they looked up what people had to say on tumblr. There were people convinced they were in a relationship, people who thought it was just teasing, and people who thought they hated each other. Which didn’t make any sense. Sometimes someone would say something particularly wrong and rude and Luke would reblog it and clarify in the comments.

A few weeks after the first incident of Calum deeming his bandmate aesthetically pleasing on stage, they were backstage in St. Louis. Calum and Luke were sitting close together on a couch trying to work on Disconnected. They hadn’t made any progress since before New York City and them writing normally just ended up with them talking about whatever felt right. They had their guitars out and were trying to piece something together when Michael comes in the room. “Uh, hey guys. Calum can I talk to you for a sec?”

Ashton walks in and sits on the opposite couch from Luke. Ashton looks between Luke and Calum and then back at Michael. Something feels off to Calum. “Sure.” Calum says slowly, turning to Luke and shrugging. Luke gives a small smile as Calum walks out with Michael. They walk down the hall to the exterior door and Michael leans against the wall and slides down, motioning for Calum to join him. “What’s this about?”

Calum can tell something is wrong by the way Michael won’t completely look him in the eye. “It’s... well... about Luke.”

Michael finally looks up and Calum thinks he figures it out. “You guys don’t want him out right? I know we said it was a trial, but I don’t think I could go back to playing without him. He really rounds us out.” Calum hopes that they don’t want to cut Luke from the band. He’s really excited to work with Luke in the studio and do interviews. But if both Michael and Ashton want him gone, Calum will have to fight for Luke and he doesn’t want an argument that size between them all.

“No, it’s not that. We love having him around it’s just...if you guys were dating or something you’d tell us, right?” Michael looks a bit uncomfortable and Calum feels his own eyebrow furrow immediately.

With a hint of shock in his voice, he answers. “What? Of course I’d tell you, but we’re not. What made you think that?”

“Well, Ash and I were on tumblr and we saw people talking about cake and...well, we thought it was like any other ship but people take it really seriously. And then everyone thinks this one blog is Luke’s-”

Calum cuts him off. “Calumsboy? Yeah that’s Luke’s blog.” He says it with a hint of pride in his voice.

Now it’s Michael’s turn to be shocked. “You know about it?” Calum nods. “Since when?”

“Uh...I think Miami? Somewhere in Florida.”

Michael’s jaw is dropped and his shoulders are pushed off the wall and squared at Calum. “Have you actually looked at it?”

“Yeah, I’ve gone pretty far back. What about it?”

“Calum, it’s a fan blog. He’s...he likes you!”

“I know. We talked about it. It’s all good.”

Michael doesn’t speak for a few seconds, just watches Calum with a disapproving stare. “Calum, are you...I can’t believe that.”

“What?! Just spit it out!”

“You’re a dick!” Michael is watching him, both hands out, exasperated.

“Mikey!”

“No, seriously, what are you thinking?” Michael’s hands are starting to move more as he gets more riled up. “Luke has a blog devoted to you, where he has posts that basically says he’s in love with you, and you’re leading him on constantly, calling him sexy and touching him. Seems a bit cruel if you’re not interested in him.” Calum can’t help but looking down at his hands in his lap at that. Maybe it is a bit cruel. But...he just likes being around Luke. He’s fun, they have fun together. What’s so wrong with that? What’s wrong with wanting to spend a lot of your time with someone who you are attracted to and can’t imagine not being in your life? Wait...

“Wait...” Calum can feel Michael’s eyes on him. “Are you interested in him?”

Calum looks away from Michael when he talks. “I don’t know. We’re in the same band now. It wouldn’t work out.” Calum’s twiddling his thumbs when he feels Michael relax against the brick wall behind him. They sit there for a few minutes, both of their thoughts clouding up the air.

“You know why I hated Luke?” Michael says out of the blue. Calum just looks over at him. “He used to watch you in school. When we were younger. I thought he wanted to steal you, be your best friend and then you wouldn’t be mine.” Michael takes a deep breath. “So I started talking shit about him to you. It wasn’t until a couple years after, I saw him after school and told him he couldn’t steal you from me, that I saw how he looked at you and he needed to stop. I was pretty mean to him. He just folded in on himself and told me he wasn’t trying to be your best friend. When I asked him what he was doing, he just stood there really still, looking at the ground, and blushed.” Michael pauses. “I felt so bad when I figured it out. It’s why I stopped talking about him for the last year of school. We all probably could’ve been friends, but it just never occurred to me that he had a crush on you.”

Calum crosses his legs and leans forward on his knees, head in his hands. So it’s not a celebrity crush. Calum had figured Luke’s crush would go away as he became more famous, but. But that didn’t look like it was going to happen. Which complicated things.

“I’ve been a shit friend.” He settles on.Michael’s hand comes up and rests on his shoulder. “I’ve been leading him on. I didn’t realize...”

Michael’s hand stops. “Calum, it’s not leading him on if, well, if you do like him too.”

Calum frowns. “Yeah, but the band-”

“What about it?” Michael asks, a little harshly. “Do you really think Ash and I would mind if you started dating?”

“No, it would just be awkward if it didn’t work out. I’ve never dated a guy before Mikey. One of us would end it and then it’d ruin the band.”

Michael is looking at Calum like Calum is delusional. “Ok, first, I don’t think it matters that Luke is a guy. You like him, you like him. That’s what matters, right? And I literally just told you that Luke has had a crush on you since we were, like, thirteen. Do you really think he’s going to end something with you just because you don’t know what you’re doing?” Calum just shrugs. “Look, if you want to ask him out, do it. Ash and I won’t stop you. Ash would probably love it, he was a little invested on the cake tag.” That causes Calum to grin. “But if you don’t want anything with Luke, you have to stop leading him on, yeah?”

Calum nods and they head back inside, Calum’s arm around Michael’s waist and Michael’s arm on Calum’s shoulders. They reach the room where Ashton and Luke are sitting on two couches. Luke looks up and smiles right at Calum. And Calum wants to sit next to him, he really does. But he needs some time to think. So Calum plops down next to Ashton and Michael takes the seat next to Luke. Luke looks over at Calum with a raised eyebrow but Calum ignores it in favor of turning to Ashton.

*****

“Hey Calum!” Luke is behind where Calum and Michael are walking. He jogs up, all of them are heading back to the tour bus after the St. Louis show.

“Sup.” Calum nods at Luke. Calum hadn’t called Luke out tonight. The fans and Luke had both noticed. Luke had looked over after every song, at first with hope and then, as the night went on, with a deeper frown each time. After the last song, before they did their encore, they were standing back stage and the fans chanted ‘Luke looks sexy!’ over and over until they came back. Luke had looked down at his shoes the entire time.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to work on Disconnected tonight? I have some ideas.”

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.” Calum doesn’t exactly know what he is doing with Luke, so short answers and distance seem to be the easiest choice at the moment. They board the bus and settled into their spots, Michael and Ashton in the back of the bus and Calum and Luke in the front with their guitars. Except this time, rather than crowding together on the couch, Calum chooses the chair opposite to sit on.

“So what are your ideas?” Calum asks as Luke looks a bit puzzled.

“Uh, yeah. I just think we need some working of the first verse.” Calum raises an eyebrow waiting for Luke to continue. “It just seems a bit heavy. And it’s like we’re saying we’re above all the mess of the world.”

Calum looks down at the notepad with pages filled with their ideas. “Ok, what if we add something in here, and then we can make this part the end of the verse?” This had been so much easier when they were next to each other, looking at the pad together more easily. But Calum isn’t giving up on this not leading Luke on thing. “We said it sounded better at the end anyways, and we can scrap what we have there now?”

Luke leans forward, craning his neck to see what Calum is talking about. “Yeah, that looks good. Want me to play it?”

“No, we’ve got to find something to put in here...”

“Well, we said it’s a love song, right?” Luke looks at Calum. “Well, if it’s all about being disconnected with someone else, we should talk about that more?”

“What about ‘but I can get away when I’m with you.’” Calum strums and sings, Luke shakes his head.

“I find my escape with you? That just doesn’t fit....”

“I find my sweet escape when I’’m alone with you?” Luke strums and sings. And it’s perfect.

“That’s perfect.” Calum feels a grin split across his face. He looks down at what they have on the page.

“How about ‘I admit I’m a victim of this crazy world too?’” Luke plays the two lines together and it just doesn’t sound right to Calum, but he knows what to fix. He picks up the pen and pad.

“I’ve got it, ‘I admit I’m a bit of a victim in the world wide system too, but I find my sweet escape when I’m alone with you.’” He sings it and Luke grins.

“That sounds great! And it fits in well with the rest of the verse! Let me play it through.” Luke plays it and Calum is a bit hypnotized. Besides the two hours during the concert, where he was on, he’d never let down the fans, his mind has been caught up in trying to figure Luke out and what exactly he means to him. Now all Calum can think about is that their fans were right. Luke is sexy. Exponentially more so when singing a song they had written together.

“Wow. Ok, that’s set.” Calum says when Luke finishes. “Any ideas for the next verse? Or the bridge?”

Luke fidgets a bit. “Kind of.” Calum waits for him to go on. “Well...here, I jotted this down earlier.” Luke hands his phone over to Calum where a few lyrics are written: _Hands around my waist, you’re counting up the hills across the sheets, And I’m a falling star, a glimmer lighting up these cotton streets._ Calum hums the melody to the words and it fits really well.

“That’s perfect.”

Luke perks up at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, and then we can do something with the sweet escape bit again, to finish up the verse.”

Luke shifts nervously in his chair again. “I wasn’t sure you’d think it fit.” Calum raises an eyebrow, “Well, it’s just... it kind of is about sex? Didn’t know if you’d want that in there.”

Calum laughs. “Have you heard our songs? They’re not the cleanest.”

Luke shrugs. “Still, I just wasn’t sure. I mean, we’re writing it together and I just...didn’t want it to be anything you didn’t want.”

Calum takes a minute. Luke is trying to say more than he’s saying, Calum can tell, but he doesn’t know what he’s trying to get at. He looks down at the legal pad, at the lyrics they have, and adds Luke’s piece. It’s a fun song, a casual sexual reference fits in just fine. A song about having that person you can just get away from the world with, a person who makes you put your phone away because they’re worth the time uninterrupted. It’s at that moment that Calum realizes he has no idea where his phone is. He can’t remember the last time he touched it all day, he’s been too busy thinking about this situation with Luke. And that...maybe that’s what Luke is alluding too.

“Umm, I think I’m going to go to bed.” Calum settles on, getting up quickly so that the pen on his lap falls to the ground. “We, um, we can work on this on the way to Seattle, since we’ll be practically stuck in here for two days.”

Calum hears Luke shakily say “sure” as Calum heads back and ducks to get in his bunk. He’s exhausted but it takes him hours to fall asleep.

*****

Over their next few days of traveling, they don’t work on the song. Every moment they're on the bus, Calum makes sure to be near either Ashton or Michael. At first Luke doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong. But Calum can tell around the third time Luke asks if he wants to work on the song and Calum blows him off that Luke is starting to worry. Calum’s just trying to be a better friend, a more aware friend. But it’s hard for Calum too. He hasn’t so much entertained the thought of actually asking Luke out, it’s more like whenever he’s thinking about how to deal with Luke he figures that asking him out would be the solution. But, of course, that opens up a whole new set of problems.

It’s after their Seattle show that Luke snaps. Again, Calum hadn’t called him attractive on stage. That along with days of Calum keeping his distance sets Luke off. They’re walking back to the buses after seeing the fans. Right as Calum is taking the first step onto the bus, he feels a hand around his arm pulling him back. “Can we talk?”Luke’s nervously standing there, arms crossed, next to the door.

“Sure.” Calum puts his hands in his pocket, not really sure what to do.

“Did I do something?” Luke runs his hand through his hair, not really looking at Calum. “You just said we would work on the song, and you didn’t, at the concert, you didn’t say...what you normally say.”

“Uh...yeah.” Calum doesn’t really know what to say. “You didn’t...it’s my fault? I just, it’s not very nice of me to...well, Mikey said I shouldn’t lead you on.”

Calum, who had been looking at Luke’s arm, sees Luke’s body completely still. Calum looks up at his face and sees Luke’s features frozen in a state of shock. “Oh,” escapes Luke’s mouth. “I’ll just...ok. Yeah. That explains it.”

Calum can’t seem to get anything right with Luke. He thought he’d been doing the right thing, but the look of embarrassment and shame on Luke’s face makes him regret everything that Calum has done with this whole...thing. It shouldn’t be this odd, Luke never thought it was odd. Calum’s the one over thinking things. Maybe he should take it all back, drag Luke into a cuddle and tell him Michael’s stupid. Only problem is that Michael’s not stupid.

Luke continues, “I’m just going to...” he motions towards the door and begins walking up to the bus, passing Calum. Calum grabs his arm.

“Luke...”

Luke shakes free. “It’s fine Calum.” Luke walks on to the bus, shoulders hunched in. Calum leans back against the bus and looks up at the sky, trying to sort through the mess in his thoughts.

When he goes back on the bus a few minutes later, the curtain is pulled over Luke’s bunk and Michael and Ashton are in the back. “Hey,” Calum greets quietly. Michael nods up at him and Ashton smiles, putting a hand on Calum’s shoulder when he sits down.

Michael looks up from the guitar he’d been fiddling with and looks at Luke’s bunk for a second before addressing Calum. “What happened?” He seems jittery, maybe a bit guilty, but mostly questioning.

Calum shrugs, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Michael continues, “what are you going to do about it?”

Calum runs a hand down his face. “I don’t know.”

*****

The San Francisco show goes poorly. Poorly’s not the right word. It goes...differently. The fans are crazy as usual, sets the same, the boys interact on stage like usual. But it’s the signs that make Calum feel that he did poorly, that he’s letting people down.

Luke woke up the morning after the Seattle show and smiled at Calum, maybe a bit sadly, but the smile was still there. There was a bit of a tension between them, brought on by distance, but everything seemed fine. Luke wasn’t mad or sad or looking to quit the band. Michael and Ashton acted like nothing had changed so Calum and Luke followed suit, just inches apart and never alone together. And Calum thought maybe it would be ok. Until he saw the signs.

The first one he noticed was after the first song, as Michael was talking to the crowd. _We think you’re hot Luke!!_ Not very original, but it made Calum want to point out that he also, in fact, thought Luke was hot. The next one he saw said _Bake us some cake!!!_ which sounded like it could be an innuendo to Calum which was distressing because the girls holding it couldn’t be older than fourteen. These in and of themselves weren’t so bad.

Now, Ashton is talking to the crowd, going on a story about the tour, saying how thankful he is, that this is their second to last show. And normally, Calum would be listening in and making side comments, trying to rile Ashton up just as Michael and Luke are doing. But all Calum can focus on is the signs that seem to be popping up. They all relate to him and Luke in some way. C _alum, tell Luke he’s hot, he misses it!_ , _My OTP: Cake, because it’s canon!_ and more, including just two giant pictures of their heads with hearts all around them. Was the fam disappointed in him? Why are they so invested in his and Luke’s friendship? There aren’t nearly as many posters about the other ships. It must be because Luke actually had pseudo admitted to having feelings for Calum which was kind of baffling to Calum.

Why did Luke hang on to those feelings for so many years? And how did he even have them before they got big? Why had Luke noticed him so many years ago? Calum didn’t think there had been anything special about him back then, they’d just been kids.

“Calum! Calum?” Calum didn’t realize he had zoned out, looking at his shoe, until Luke calls his name. Calum looks up to see Luke smiling at him, one eyebrow raised. He mouths _are you ok?_ at Calum.

Calum nods and smiles. “Sorry about that guys. Got a bit distracted.” Calum waves out at the crowd and hears the crackle of a mic next to him.

“Was it my body?” Luke seems confident as he speaks but his face flashes with nerves as soon as it’s out of his mouth.

Calum just looks at him. This new friend who always had the potential to be more, who always kind of felt like more. And maybe it’s time Calum starts admitting it to himself that he wants something more. Calum grins and turns to look at Luke as he speaks into the mic. “Something like that.”

A smile breaks out over Luke’s face, tinged in relief. Screams.

*****

Ashton comes up behind Calum and pulls him back as Michael and Luke go on stage and start sound check. They’re standing behind some big sound equipment and Ashton looks serious for once in his life. “So, Calum. Let’s talk.” Ashton has his arms crossed in front of him.

Calum, as a bit of a joke, puffs up his chest and crosses his arms as well. “Sure.”

Ashton rolls his eyes and grins. “Michael and I have been talking, since this is the last show,” it punches Calum in the gut. They’re back in LA after making their awkward heart shaped journey through North America. They’re going back to Australia, to visit family, after just one more show, tonight. Ashton continues, “and we figured that you should make the final call about Luke.”

Calum, thinking this has to do with the fact that he kind of wants to be in a relationship with Luke, word vomits. “I can’t just do that Ashton, I’m still thinking about it. What if it doesn’t work out? Or he doesn’t like the real me? I mean, his crush started when he barely knew me, how do I know he actually likes me? I just need to think-” Calum stops when he sees Ashton looking at him with a frown and a raised eye brow. “What?”

“I meant keeping him in the band. Like, making him an official member. Of the band.” Ashton is leaning forward a bit and smirking while Calum blushes a bit.

“Oh, yeah. Of course, we have to.”

“Well,” Ashton stops him, “Michael and I were talking, as I said, and he says the main reason you’re struggling with all this is because of the band.” Ashton pauses and looks at Calum, serious face, the most Calum has seen it ever probably. “We don’t blame you if you want to go back to just us three so that you and Luke could date.”

Calum’s jaw drops in disgust. “What? Absolutely not. I’m not going to take his dream away just so I can date him! Come on Ash, do you really think I’d do that?”

“In all fairness, I think you’re just as much Luke’s dream as the band is.”

Calum shakes his head. “We’re keeping him. In the band, official member of 5sos and all that.”

“Good.” Ashton nods once. “And, Calum, I think your problem isn’t that you haven’t thought about it enough. I think you’re thinking about it too much.” Ashton reaches forward and grips Calum’s shoulder. “You good?”

Calum nods, “Yeah. Let’s go do sound check.” Ashton whoops and drags Calum onstage under his arm. Luke looks up as they come around the corner and smiles. It’s the same smile Calum used to catch out of the corner of his eye in class if Calum said something funny. Luke would sit and smile down at his desk while the rest of the class laughed at what Calum had said. And now, almost a decade later, the smile is still for Calum. Maybe he has been thinking too much. Time for action.

*****

The same posters are all there. Similar signs at least, not the same exact signs. And the crowd is still great. There’s a certain different energy since it’s the last show of the tour. Ashton is playing particularly hard, Michael is throwing himself into the performance more than ever and Luke can’t stop smiling. It goes by far too fast.

Pretty soon the last song before the encore is ringing its last note. The fans, as they have at every show where Calum hasn’t commented on Luke’s appearance, are chanting _Luke is hot_. Before Ashton can do the preliminary, pre-encore good byes, Calum stops thinking. He just does. He grabs his mic and speaks over the crowds before Ashton can. The fans might not be able to hear him but he knows Luke will, because of the in-ears.

“You know, Luke, the fans are right. You’re ridiculously attractive.” Ok. He was wrong. The fans did hear him, and they're screaming as the fans do. Luke also hears, is looking at him with a small grin. Michael and Ashton are looking at each other, their expressions look like the equivalent of shrugs. “Want to go out on a date with me sometime?”

The fans continue to scream, as the fans normally continue to do. Michael shoots him a disappointed look. Ashton has an eyebrow raised but is grinning at Calum. Luke though, Calum feels kind of bad, like maybe he shouldn’t have done this in front of everyone. It makes it look like a joke for the fans and that’s not what it is.

Luke has a slightly sad expression and loses his smile for the first time all night. “Yeah, sure mate.” He pretty much mumbles into his microphone.

Calum tries to catch his eyes as Ashton tells the fans they have to go. Everyone knows they’ll be back on stage in a few minutes, but still, tradition. The four of them make their way offstage and stand in a circle as the crowd cheers. Michael and Ashton are on either side of Calum and Luke is across the circle, staring down at his feet and fidgeting. Michael’s face, looking at Calum, very clearly says _that wasn’t nice you dick_ while Ashton’s says _come on, make things better_.

“I was serious.” Calum rubs his neck with one hand and wraps the other around his waist, a little self conscious. Luke’s eyes dart up, full of surprise. “Do you still- Is it still a yes?”

Luke’s eyes are wide and his mouth a bit slack. He just nods his head, slowly, mechanically, a few times before his face breaks out in happiness. Calum lets go of the breath he was holding as Michael and Ashton smile too. They’re just standing in a circle, all of them stupidly smiling at each other. Their manager has to come over and literally push them onstage. They finish their first arena tour with a bang, and when they bow at the end, Luke’s hand around Calum’s waist grips tightly. The fans scream.

*****

“They’re pretty good. When I was looking for an opener, I found them. But they’re a bunch of dads who have like, lives, and just like playing around here in bars.” Calum holds the door of the bar open for Luke as they slip into the crowd. It’s four days after they landed back in Sydney after the tour ended. Calum and Luke had decided to go out after a few days so they could see their families, take time apart before they’re big date. Of course, that hadn’t really worked out since the four of them had gotten together the day before for lunch and then lounged around Calum’s family’s house. The three of them, Michael, Calum, and Ashton had an apartment downtown they shared and apparently Luke lived with a few people a couple neighborhoods over. So Calum, after moving back to the apartment, had decided to walk to pick up Luke and bring him to the little bar where one of his favorite local bands did shows occasionally.

“I’ve never been here before.” Luke’s eyes scan the tiny bar.

“Really? You live so close." Calum questions while Luke shrugs. “I love it here. The people are really nice and the music’s good. Most nights at least.”

“Oh wait,” Luke looks back, “I have been here before! You guys played here a few times, right?”

“You went to those shows? Two please.” Calum asks the bartender, a friend, to grab them some beers. She smiles and winks before tilting her head towards Luke. Calum points at her and waggles his finger. “Hey, stay away. He’s here with me.” Calum doesn’t miss the light flush and serene smile on Luke’s face before he replies.

“Uh, yeah. You guys put posters up at school. I just thought it was so cool that you guys actually got to play in a bar. We were like 16 and you already had written songs and stuff. Plus it was you. I was smitten.” Luke smirks as he takes one of the bottles.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know you were a fan. I thought we did a good job of talking to the people at our shows after when their were still so few people.”

“I always ducked out, didn’t want Mikey to see me.”

Calum turns to him, “You know, Mikey feels bad about that. Felt bad back then too.”

Luke smiles. “We talked. I don’t blame him. It’s not like we would’ve all become friends and started the band together with the four of us. If anything, he gave me time to get my self together.”

Calum smirks now, “And make a fan blog.”

Luke laughs. “I knew you only liked me because of that blog.”

“I’m not going to deny it.” Calum looks over to the small stage when he hears a guitar. "They’re starting.”

“Come on.” Luke pulls Calum up from where he had been leaning on the bar. Luke takes his hand and drags him through the crowd until they have a good spot right as the first song starts. When Luke drops Calum's hand, Calum rests his arm around Luke’s waist, a little show of claiming him. And Luke leans back into it a bit as they cheer for the band.

They get pizza a few shops down after the show. And it doesn’t feel like any date Calum’s ever really been on before. Partly because he knows so much about Luke that he doesn’t feel like he’s discovering new things so much as it feels like Luke is gifting him little pieces of himself he didn’t know. And Calum doesn’t feel any pressure to be cool, and there’s no fear that he has to be the perfect date or else he won’t get a second one because he know there will be a second one. Because it’s him and Luke. It’s just easy. Like when Calum drops his pizza and glares at it, and Luke laughs so hard he can barely breathe. Calum has made him laugh like that before and knows he’ll do it again. There’s no pressure, just two people who know each other really well out on the town. Calum tells Luke as much when they’re walking back to Luke’s flat. “You know, this just didn’t feel like a date.”

Luke’s face falls a bit. “Oh.”

“No. Luke, no.” Calum holds a hand out trying to stop Luke’s thoughts. “I mean, like, it just felt like you and me hanging out like we always do. No pressure. First dates are normally hard for me.”

Luke’s face seems to lighten. “Oh, good. Right?”

Calum smiles, “Right.”

A few minutes later, they’re just about in front of the stairs that lead up to the door to Luke’s apartment, and Luke speaks. “I know something that would make this definitely feel like a date.” Luke pauses in front of his building, arms crossed and face soft and shy.

It takes Calum longer than it should for him to get what Luke is saying. Oh. _Oh_. Calum leans forward a bit to kiss Luke, softly. And it’s weird. Their noses bump a bit, both have very chapped lips, and Calum completely forgets about the lip ring.

Calum and Luke both pull back laughing. Calum speaks first. “Oh god, I’m sorry. That was awkward.”

“It’s ok. First kisses normally are right?” Luke runs his hand through his quiff a few times before lowering it back down to his crossed arms. “I guess I’ll go in?”

Instead Calum steps forward and steadies Luke’s face in his hands before kissing him again. This time is much better. Luke’s arms come down around Calum’s back and Calum moves a hand around Luke’s neck. It’s not heated or passionate, maybe a bit lazy and mixed with intermittent laughter. A bit like their relationship.

A few minutes later, Luke pulls away and drops his hands to Calum’s waist. With a bit of a giggle Luke says, “Is it creepy if I say I’ve been wanting that to happen since I was 13?”

Calum gives him a few more pecks. “Maybe, but I don’t really mind.” They both laugh. Kind of reluctantly, they break a part and Luke digs his key out while saying good bye. Calum begins to walk away when he hears Luke call out.

“Calum!” Calum turns to see Luke leaning his shoulder against the door jamb, looking back at Calum. “We never finished Disconnected.”

Calum laughs. His mind travels to a possible future. He and Luke sitting next to each other at an interview, talking about how Disconnected is their favorite song because it brought them together. He and Luke watching fan videos of pictures of them to their song. Calum writing a dedication to Luke for their next album with that song underlined. “S’alright. We’ve got time.”

Luke grins back at him. “Yeah?”

Calum smirks as he begins walking backwards. “Yep, and now I’ve got inspiration too.”

Luke laughs as Calum turns around and starts singing loudly enough for Luke to hear. “I admit I’m a bit of a victim in the world wide system too, but I find my sweet escape when I’m alone with you...” Calum is halfway down the block now and peeks over his shoulder as he trails off. Luke is still leaning against the door, watching with a grin on his face. Yeah, they have time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Have a great day!


End file.
